TheSynology BeeStationprovides most of the luxuries we’ve grown to expect from cloud storage but stores your data in your home. It’s an incredibly easy-to-use option for people who want to exercise more control over their personal data but lack the technical knowledge to set up a traditional NAS.
Unfortunately, with priority placed on desktop users, the BeeStation isn’t as helpful for those of us who store most of our personal data on our phones or tablets.
Synology BeeStation
At a similar cost and size to an external hard drive, the Synology BeeStation is an easy-to-use alternative to Dropbox and other cloud storage. You can access your files from anywhere without having to upload them to someone else’s servers.
Pricing and Availability
The BeeStation is the most entry-level NAS available from Synology. It comes in a single model, available for $219.99.
That gets you 4TB of storage, and while I do want to avoid getting technical, given the target audience of this device, it’s worth pointing out that this is not RAID storage, meaning you only have one copy of any file you save to the BeeStation. That means if the hard drive within the BeeStation dies, you lose your data unless you have it backed up elsewhere.
The BeeStation comes in one color: black. For what this product is, I think that’s plenty.
An External Hard Drive, Connected to the Cloud
The BeeStation is an attempt to provide you with all the conveniences of a service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or iCloud, except the data is stored in your own home. Synology offers a web service and software to connect you to your own data from anywhere in the world, but they don’t actually upload your data to their servers. Your BeeStation is your server.
As far as servers go, it doesn’t get much simpler than the BeeStation. It’s a black drive not much thicker than your typical external hard drive with a spinning disk.
On the front, there’s an indicator light that displays the current status of the BeeStation. On the back, there’s a power button, a USB-A port, a USB-C port, an Ethernet port, and a port for the power cord.
The BeeStation logo is emblazoned on the side, adding a small touch of flare. Overall, the unit is stylish enough to sit on a desk or shelf without being garish, yet subdued enough that it won’t attract too much attention.
A NAS Anyone Can Set Up
Setting up the BeeStation feels akin to buying a portable hard drive but being required to plug in an Ethernet cable and create a Dropbox account before you’re able to use it.
The BeeStation doesn’t require any assembly, and it comes with all the necessary cables, including Ethernet. Your first step is to find a spot near your home router where you can leave the BeeStation running, unless you have Ethernet ports accessible throughout the house. Our house does, so I was able to simply set the BeeStation on a side table, connect it to the Ethernet port in the wall, and plug in the power cable.
An orange light will start flashing. This lets you know the device is going through its own setup process. You need to wait for the light to stop flashing and change from orange to white. Then it’s ready for you to begin.
When it’s time to go hands on, scan the QR code that comes packaged with your BeeStation, then head to the designated URL to create an account. At that point, it’s time to start downloading apps.
A Dropbox Alternative for Your Desktop PC
Thedesktop companion appis the only way to actively sync files with your BeeStation. The program is available for two platforms: Windows and macOS. This, sadly, makes the BeeStation not suitable for those of us using different types of computers.
The desktop client can’t help you make your Chromebook less dependent on Google. It isn’t available to Linux users without the overhead of virtualization or emulation. This approach also means the BeeStation can’t make a backup of your phone. This reduces its usefulness for those of us who use our phones as our primary, if not only, PCs.
Yet for Windows and macOS users, the companion app offers the essential features. You can select folders to sync from your machine and access those folders from any other computer, tablet, or phone. You can share links with others, replicating one of the most useful features of cloud storage. You can also preview and listen to files directly from the browser.
Photo Backup and File Management on Mobile
File syncing does not extend to mobile phones. Instead, the BeeStation is primarily concerned with helping you access files from your phone, not back up the data on it (except for photos).
There are two apps. BeeFiles (available foriPhoneandAndroid) is a general purpose file manager. BeePhotos (also available foriPhoneandAndroid) is a camera backup solution you may use to replace Google Photos or Apple iCloud.
BeeFiles enables you to upload files, but not folders, from your mobile device. You can create folders, and you can manage files after they’ve been uploaded. Your BeeStation is effectively an external hard drive that you can access over the internet using a dedicated app.
You can switch to the “Computers” Tab to access any computers that sync to your BeeStation. Say you have some files on your desktop and different files on your laptop. This lets you access those files from any device without having to actually store multiple copies.
BeePhotos is more of a mobile friendly app. You can automatically back up any photo you take with your phone’s camera. Even further, you can back up any folder containing images on your phone. You also have flexibility not to utilize more data than you’d like, such as only uploading over Wi-Fi, or to preserve battery life by only uploading when connected to a charger.
BeePhotos feels like the apps it hopes to replace. Your photos appear in a lengthy stream organized by date. you may sort by month and year, or you can organize your images by creating albums and assigning tags.
The app also utilizes the BeeStation’s on-device AI that works to tag some of your photos for you. It does an okay job at this. For the most part, it accurately identified when a picture contained food or plants. It was a little less good at identifying animals. Pictures of my phone were labeled as “appliances.” In short, I’d say the AI might be occasionally helpful, but I wouldn’t depend on it.
Can BeePhotos replicate all of Google Photos? No. It lacks some of Google Photos' more impressive search features. Nor is it as feature rich as a native gallery app like Samsung Gallery. you’re able to rotate photos, but that’s it as far as image editing. You will need to share images with another app if you really want to manipulate photos.
Getting Use Out of the USB Port
You cannot connect the BeeStation directly to your computer, even if you plug a cable into the USB port in the back. That port is reserved for taking your existing external storage and making it accessible over the internet. You can plug in either an external drive or a flash drive. Once properly configured, your BeeStation can serve as your means of accessing the files on any computer or external drive, without uploading any of your files to the web.
If you do want the peace of mind that comes from knowing you have a copy of your files backed up remotely, you can sync your BeeStation with a cloud storage provider. You also have the more private option of backing up your BeeStation to an external hard drive. You can store copies of your data on a larger drive and lock it away somewhere safe, such as a trusted family member’s house.
Accessible on Your Local Network
Out of the box, the BeeStation is an online-only affair. If you want to manage files exclusively on your own network, the BeeStation isn’t the best purchase for you. Yet you do have the option to access files locally via the Samba protocol. This option is tucked away as an advanced setting via the Synology web portal.
Once you enable local access, you’re able to open a file manager on your device and open any of the files on your BeeStation this way.
Local access is also your workaround for syncing files from a mobile phone or a Linux PC. You can sync files using any app that plays nicely with Samba. I was able to sync files usingAutosync for Android.
Syncing files this way doesn’t provide the full feature set you would have from an official client, but it gets you close. Your files sync in the background, but the connection drops when you leave home. You will need to fall back on the BeeFiles app or a web browser to access your data when away from home.
A Privacy Improvement, But Still Not the Best Solution
There are two major issues when it comes to cloud storage, at least as far as privacy is concerned. One is that unless your data is end-to-end encrypted (and only you have access to the decryption key) you’re ultimately storing your data on some company’s computers and giving them permission to view all of your files. The second is that cloud storage suffers from data breaches, making anything you upload susceptible to ending up in unknown hands.
BeeStation is a partial solution to both of these concerns. On the one hand, you aren’t uploading your files to Synology’s servers, but you do have to create an account and grant them access to any file you save on your BeeStation. So effectively, it’s still Synology’s server, just stored inside your home.
Since you’ve created an online account, and your files can be accessed from anywhere in the world, then your files are vulnerable to anyone who gets access to your account. If your credentials are compromised, someone can snatch up your data.
All this is to say that your BeeStation could be compromised, but that’s not to say that such a scenario is likely. Unlike cloud storage, someone can’t suck up your data as part of a bulk data leak. Instead, they have to target your account directly or gain access by installing malware. It’s a different type of threat.
There’s a certain comfort that comes from knowing you can unplug your BeeStation at any time, but as long as it’s on, there’s a little bit of risk.
Should You Buy the Synology BeeStation?
I wish I could say that if you’re NAS-curious but intimidated by the prospect of administering your own network storage, that the BeeStation is a safe bet. Thing is, that depends on what you want from a NAS. If you’re after local-only storage to store your Plex library or run your own instance of Nextcloud, theSynology BeeStationisn’t for you.
Even if all you want is simple backups across your local network, the BeeStation still isn’t for you.
The BeeStation is for people who want to replicate the Dropbox experience on their own hardware, and even there, it’s still of limited usefulness for people who are looking to back up anything other than a Windows PC or Apple computer.
Yet once you get past that lengthy list of caveats, there are still a lot of people who would be well served by a BeeStation. The price is pretty compelling, and the execution is top-notch. It’s a good product, and if it supports more platforms some day, it would be even better.
